A Psalm for the Wild-Built

by Becky Chambers

  The last of these caught Dex’s eye. Chesterbridge was the anachronistic name for a part of the Northern Wilds, if they remembered correctly. Hart’s Brow, however—that name was still in use. It was one of the Antlers, a mountain range well beyond the Borderlands, deep in the vast wilderness that humans had given back to Panga. Dex was aware of Hart’s Brow, in that dim sort of way where they could confirm that a thing existed but say nothing else of it. The mention of a hermitage, however … that was new to them.

  Dex tapped the link.

  The Hart’s Brow Hermitage was a remote monastery located near the summit of one of the lower mountains in the Antlers. Built in PT 1108, the hermitage was intended as a sanctuary for both clergy and pilgrims who desired respite from urban life. It was abandoned at the end of the Factory Age, and the site now lies within the protected wilderness zone established during the Transitional Era.

  Dex went back to the previous page, then clicked the link for cloud crickets.

  Cloud crickets are a species of insect. Unlike other species of crickets, which were once widespread across Panga, the cloud cricket was found only in the evergreen forests of the Antlers. Cloud crickets were believed to be a threatened species during the end of the Factory Age. As the Antlers now fall within a protected wilderness zone, the current status of the cloud cricket is unknown.

  Dex chewed on that.

  I wonder if they’re still there, came the first thought.

  I could go there and find out, went the second.

  It was a stupid idea, easy to brush away, like the countless other moments in the day when a brain spins nonsense. But the thought came back as Dex cooked breakfast, and again as they got dressed, and again as they packed up camp.

  Here is why you can’t go, they retorted irritably to themself. They opened their map guide on their computer, entered “here” in one field and “Hart’s Brow Mountain” in the other, and submitted the data. The map guide came back with a notification Dex had never seen before.

  WARNING: The route you have entered goes outside of human settlement areas and into protected wilderness. Travel along pre-Transition roads is strongly discouraged by both the Pangan Transit Cooperative and the Wildguard. Roads in these regions have not been maintained. Both road and environmental conditions are likely to be dangerous. Wildlife is unpredictable and unaccustomed to humans. This route is not recommended.

  Dex nodded in an I told you so way, got on their ox-bike, and began the ride toward Hammerstrike, as scheduled.

  But as they pedaled, the idea continued to bounce around them like a gnat, just as the idea of leaving the City had once done. And as they pedaled farther along, everything about the day ahead of them felt like a chore. They knew what the scene would be in Hammerstrike. They knew what the ride the day after that would look like, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after—

  They stopped the wagon.

  I bet it’s quiet out there, they thought.

  No, they replied, and continued on.

  They stopped the wagon again twenty minutes later.

  I bet you could travel that road for days and never see another person, they thought. The wagon’s got all you need.

  No, they replied, and continued on.

  An hour later, they stopped one more time. They stood there on the road, staring at the paving, feeling that the sun had grown unnaturally bright. The idea danced and danced. Their perception of the sunlight grew brighter still, and Dex would’ve sworn they were drunk or high or feverish, but on the contrary, what came next felt clearheaded as could be. They pulled out their pocket computer. They sent a message to Hammerstrike letting the people there know that they were very sorry, but they would have to postpone their stop. Personal matters, they said. Return date to be determined. This action should have made Dex feel guilty, as ignoring that morning’s messages had done.

  It didn’t.

  It felt great.

  Dex sent a message to their dad, too, saying that they were very glad to receive his letter, but they were really busy that day, and everything was fine, but they’d get back to him later. That made them feel a little guilty but not as much as it should have.

  With effort, they turned the wagon around and headed for a road they’d never seen before.

  What are you doing? they thought. The hell are you doing?

  I don’t know, they replied with a nervous grin. I have no idea.

  * * *

  The forest changed. Down in the villages, the towering trees had an accessible feel, allowing plenty of room for sunlight to reach the flowering bushes below. This old road, on the other hand, headed into the Kesken Forest, a place left to pursue its own instincts uninterrupted. Here, the trees were taller than any building you’d find outside the City, their branches locked like pious fingers against the distant sky. Only the slightest threads of sun broke through, illuminating waxy needles in eerie glow. Moss hung down like tapestries, fungus crept in alien curves, birds called but could not be seen.

  The road itself was a relic, paved in black asphalt—an oil road, made for oil motors and oil tires and oil fabric and oil frames. The hardened tar was broken now into tectonic plates, displaced by the unrelenting creep of the roots below. Both ox-bike and wagon struggled with this unkind surface, and more than once, Dex had to hop off the saddle to walk their vehicle around a pothole, or clear debris from the road. They noted, as they dragged a branch out of their way, how dense the growth was beyond the edge of the dying asphalt, how intimidatingly tangled. Dex thought of the news stories that popped up every couple years about some hiker who ventured off-trail in the borderlands and was never heard of again. The wilderness was not known for letting the foolish return.

  Dex stuck to the road. They pedaled and pushed and dragged and walked, and climbed, climbed, climbed.

  “Allalae holds, Allalae warms,” they panted. “Allalae soothes and Allalae charms. Allalae holds, Allalae warms—” They rounded a steep corner. “Allalae soothes and Allalae—ah, shit.” They squeezed the brakes hard, jerking the handlebars to the side. Wagon and bike came to a skidding halt, accompanied by the sound of dozens of items rattling inside, hopefully unbroken.

  There wasn’t a branch across the road but a tree. It was a small tree, but still, a whole-ass tree, its dirty roots exposed in the air like an underworld bouquet.

  Dex slid off the saddle once more, straddling the frame of their bike, and thought, not for the first time, that maybe this was stupid. An hour back the way they came, and they’d be on the return trip to Hammerstrike. There were hot springs they could soak in there, and a good cookhouse that probably had a rack of something wild over the fire. Dex imagined lights twinkling in the dark, guiding them back to a place made specifically for humans.

  Dex kicked down the wagon’s brakes. They shoved. They swore. They rolled the damn tree out of the way, and continued their ride.

  By this point, Dex was wrecked. The air was getting crisp, the light getting low. Nothing about this combination was conducive to travel, but they had to find a decent place to stop. Good as Sister Fern’s brakes were, parking the wagon on a slope overnight wasn’t safe. So, Dex climbed.

  Just as they were wondering if it were possible for a person’s lungs to actually explode, they crested one last hump. This revealed a gentle downhill wind, which Dex coasted along with merciful ease. As the slope flatted out, it curved left, and what lay off the road there gave Dex a giddy rush—adrenaline, sure, but triumph, too. To some, the spot may have seemed to be nothing more than a clearing, but Dex saw it for what it truly was:

  A perfect campsite.

  The clearing was level and spacious, yet snug—wreathed with trees as though the forest were cupping its hands around it. There was no pavement there, only the brown and green of good, growing things. Dex parked both bike and wagon, then collapsed happily onto the ground. A cloud of fireflies puffed up from the moss into the air, flickering flirtatiously. The mattress of tiny leaves below Dex
was soft and cool, a welcome balm for sweating skin.

  “Ahhhhh,” they said to the forest. The forest replied with rustling needles, creaking limbs, and nothing at all.

  Nobody in the world knows where I am right now, they thought, and the notion of that filled them with bubbling excitement. They had canceled their life, bailed out on a whim. The person they knew themself to be should’ve been rattled by that, but someone else was at the helm now, someone rebellious and reckless, someone who had picked a direction and gone for it as if it were of no more import than choosing a sandwich. Dex didn’t know who they were, in that moment. Perhaps that was why they were smiling.

  The fireflies were bright against the pinking sky, and Dex took that as a cue to set up camp. A few geometric unfoldings later, Dex had conjured both kitchen and shower. Food and a good scrub were imminent, and a chair waited beside the clean-fire drum for when all else was complete. Dex put their hands on their hips and surveyed the scene. They nodded—not a trader nod, or a service nod. A pleased nod. A satisfied nod. The kind of nod that nodded best when it had no audience.

  They hooked up the fire drum to the biogas tank strapped to the bottom of the wagon, and switched the burner on. A soft whoomp preceded the friendly licks of flame, enticing Dex to lean in. It wasn’t too cold out, but their exhausted muscles craved heat, and Dex couldn’t help indulging. After a minute or so, they took out their pocket computer, in search of music. To their surprise, they still had satellite signal and were able to access the nighttime playlists curated by Woodland streamcasters. Revamped folk classics flowed forth from the speakers affixed to the kitchen, and Dex’s smile grew. Yeah. This was good.

  They bopped along as they fetched the makings of dinner from inside the wagon, carrying an armload of vegetables back to the stove. “There’s a boy way out in Buckland,” they sang as they began to chop a spicy onion. “And I think he knows my name.…” Dex was a good singer, but this particular talent was not something they were in the habit of sharing. More verses followed, and more vegetables too—spring potatoes, frilly cabbage, a hearty scoop of blue beans to get some protein in there. They swept the colorful medley into a pot, added a generous hunk of butter, tossed in a dash of this and a splash of that, and set the whole jumble on the stove to simmer. Nine minutes, Dex knew—enough to get the veggies soft and the skins crispy. Plenty of opportunity for a shower in the meantime.

  Dex stripped down, tossing their sweat-soaked clothes into the wagon. They hooked up the greywater pan, positioned it beneath the showerhead that swung out from the wagon’s exterior, and got to scrubbing. It was a camp shower and therefore nothing to write home about, but even though it lacked the oomph of a proper wash, banishing human salt and trail dust from their skin felt luxurious. “Oh, oh, OH, I’ll be on my waaaaay,” they sang as they filled their hair with a thick lather of sweet mint soap. They opened their eyes once the suds were rinsed safely down. Through the mist of the showerhead, they could see a squirrel watching them curiously from a nearby rock. The sky above was shifting from pink to orange, and even though the early-waking stars had begun to complement the fireflies, the air was not cold enough to make Dex rush. They smiled. Gods, but it was good to be outside.

  They shut off the water and reached for their towel on its usual hook, but their hand met with nothing. They’d remembered to set out their sandals, but the all-important towel had been forgotten inside the wagon. “Ah, dammit,” Dex said lightly. They shook themself off like an otter as the cloudy remains of their shower glugged back into the filtration system. Sandals strapped to wet feet, Dex passed dripping by the kitchen, where the crisping onion and melting butter mingled deliciously. “I got whiskey in my pocket,” the band on the streamcast sang, and Dex sang it too as they walked not to the wagon but to the fireside. They got as close to the flames as was safe, doing a timid dance as the heat dried them off. “I got polish on my shoes…”

  “Got a boat out on the ri-verrrr,” Dex sang, moving their fists like pistons in front of their torso. Singing, they could do; dancing, not so much. But out here, alone, in the middle of nowhere … who cared? They turned around, confidence growing, shaking their bare posterior toward the fire. “All I need right now is—”

  Dex would not finish that particular verse, because in that moment, a seven-foot-tall, metal-plated, boxy-headed robot strode briskly out of the woods.

  “Hello!” the robot said.

  Dex froze—butt out, hair dripping, heart skipping, whatever thoughts they’d been entertaining vanished forever.

  The robot walked right up to them. “My name is Mosscap,” it said, sticking out a metal hand. “What do you need, and how might I help?”

  3

  SPLENDID SPECKLED MOSSCAP

  Dex tried to process the … the thing standing in front of them. Its body was abstractly human in shape, but that was where the similarity ended. The metal panels encasing its frame were stormy grey and lichen-dusted, and its circular eyes glowed a gentle blue. Its mechanical joints were bare, revealing the coated wires and rods within. Its head was rectangular, nearly as broad as its erstwhile shoulders. Panels on the sides of its otherwise rigid mouth had the ability to shift up and down, and mechanical shutters lidded its eyes. Both of these features were arranged in something not entirely dissimilar from a smile.

  Dex realized, slowly, still naked, still dripping, that the robot wanted them to shake its hand.

  Dex did not.

  The robot pulled back. “Oh, dear. Have I done something wrong? You’re the first human I’ve ever met. The large mammals I’m most familiar interacting with are river wolves, and they respond best to a direct approach.”

  Dex stared, all knowledge of verbal speech forgotten.

  The robot’s face couldn’t do much, but it managed to look confused all the same. “Can you understand me?” It raised its hands and began to sign.

  “No, I can—” Dex realized they’d instinctively begun signing along with their spoken words, and stopped. “I can hear,” they managed to say. “Uh … I … um…”

  The robot took another step back. “Are you afraid of me?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Dex said.

  The robot crouched, trying to align itself with Dex’s height. “Does this help?”

  “That’s … more condescending than anything.”

  “Hm.” The robot straightened up. “Well, then, allow me to assure you: I mean you no harm, and my quest in human territory is one of goodwill. I thought that much would be obvious from the Parting Promise, but perhaps it was presumptuous of me to assume.”

  The Parting Promise. Some distant synapse fired, some speck of knowledge learned once in school and never used again, but Dex was too shaken to make the connection. Before a link could be forged, another problem registered.

  Dinner was burning.

  “Shit.” Dex scurried to the stove to find the multicolored vegetables turning a uniform black.

  The robot walked up behind them. “This is cooking!” it said happily. “It’s very exciting to see cooking.”

  “It was cooking,” Dex said, scrambling for tongs. “Now it’s a mess.” They began to rescue their meal, evacuating the salvageable bits onto a plate.

  “Can I help?” the robot asked. “Can I … bring you something that would help?”

  Dex’s brain made the laborious shift from what is happening? to fix it! “My towel,” they said.

  “Your towel.” The robot looked around. “Where—”

  Dex jerked their head directionally as they scraped char from the bottom of the pan. “In the wagon, on the hook, by the ladder. It’s red.”

  The robot opened the wagon door and leaned as much of itself as it could inside. “Belongings! Oh, this is a delight. And you have so many, and all over—”

  “Towel!” Dex shouted as one of the better-looking veggies tumbled off their plate and into the dirt.

  “Oh, here’s a fish, and there’s a fish, the fish are jumpin’ hiiiiiigh,” the speakers sa
ng cheerily. Dex grabbed their computer and shut the noise off.

  The disconcerting sound of rummaging emanated from the wagon as the robot navigated the too-small space. A metal arm was extended around the corner, fluffy red fabric in hand. “This?”

  Dex grabbed the towel and wrapped it around themself. They stared despondently at what should have been a delicious dinner. They looked down at the clumps of moistened dirt that had collected on clean skin through the holes in their sandals. A bloodsuck landed on their bare shoulder; they slapped it irritably. “Sorry,” Dex said to the remains of the bug as they wiped it on a kitchen cloth.

  The robot noted this. “Did you just apologize to the bloodsuck for killing it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It didn’t do anything wrong. It was acting in its nature.”

  “Is this typical of people, to apologize to things you kill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hm!” the robot said with interest. It looked at the plate of vegetables. “Did you apologize to each of these plants individually as you harvested them, or in aggregate?”

  “We … don’t apologize to plants.”

  “Why not?”

  Dex frowned, opened their mouth, then shook their head. “What—what are you? What is this? Why are you here?”

  The robot, again, looked confused. “Do you not know? Do you no longer speak of us?”

  “We—I mean, we tell stories about—is robots the right word? Do you call yourself robots or something else?”

  “Robot is correct.”

  “Okay, well—it’s kid stories, mostly. Sometimes, you hear somebody say they saw a robot in the borderlands, but I always thought it was bullshit. I know you’re out there, but it’s like … it’s like saying you saw a ghost.”

  “We’re not ghosts or bullshit,” the robot said simply. “Rare sightings have certainly occurred, in both directions. But there hasn’t been actual contact between your kind and mine since the Parting Promise.”